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Super Bowl windfall likely inflated, studies suggest

In this Jan. 29, 2008 file photo, Mike San Miguel, of La Verne, Calif., checks out the Super Bowl merchandise in the Arizona Highways retail store at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport before catching a flight. Broadway producers, merchants and restaurateurs may not see the profits they hope will come with the Super Bowl visiting New York as fans will more likely spend their money on NFL branded merchandise and events. (AP Photo/Ross D. Franklin, File)

Associated Press

NEW YORK — Will the snowy New York City area really reap an estimated $600 million economic boost from the Super Bowl? Probably not.

Despite such lofty predictions, sports economists say the financial impact of the Super Bowl could fall far below expectations, in part because visitors often spend their cash at NFL-sponsored or corporate events rather than at tourist attractions. Some hotels say Super Bowl bookings are running behind what they hoped for, prompting them to ease demands for minimum stays and room deposits. And academic studies show that at best, past Super Bowls generated tens of millions, not hundreds of millions.

“Move the decimal point one place to the left,” said Robert Baade, a professor at Lake Forest College in Illinois, who has studied the Super Bowl’s impact on local economies. “The NFL says $500 or $600 million? I think $50 million to $60 million would be a generous appraisal of what the Super Bowl generates.”

The NY/NJ Super Bowl Host Committee, which has worked closely with the NFL to prepare for the Feb. 2 game, has claimed in the years-long run-up that it would generate $500 million to $600 million for the region, but it refused to provide any information on how it tabulated that estimate. An NFL spokesman said the league does not conduct economic impact studies on the Super Bowl.

A study Baade conducted in 2000 showed that the average Super Bowl from the 1970s through the late ’90s only accounted for about $32 million each in increased economic activity at the most. The study, which examined tax revenue and other economic factors before and after the Super Bowl, concluded that the 1999 Super Bowl in Miami, for example, only contributed about $37 million to the South Florida economy.

The NFL, by comparison, claimed that the 1999 game between the Denver Broncos and Atlanta Falcons generated $396 million, the study said.

County sales tax data in Jacksonville showed hardly any increase in 2005 when it hosted the Super Bowl compared to non-Super Bowl years, according to a study conducted by Philip Porter, an economics professor at the University of South Florida.

“No one’s ever been able to find a footprint that an event occurred,” he said.

Porter found that visitors spend money at NFL-funded events and buy NFL-branded memorabilia during Super Bowl week instead of frequenting local establishments.

Die-hard Denver or Seattle fans won’t necessarily attend a Broadway show or visit the Statue of Liberty during their stay, as tourist attractions often report lower attendance than usual during major sporting events.